


Together Forever

by Pilventekija



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Angst but sweetness too, Day 4: Stars, Depression, Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week 2018, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sad, M/M, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 23:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pilventekija/pseuds/Pilventekija
Summary: Kazuaki has a rough night.Hitori decides he needs some fresh air.Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week 2018 Day 4: Stars





	Together Forever

Uzune was a bright student, a good person, reliable, punctual, honest and everything Kazuaki wasn’t. Uzune went to school and did his homework and he still had time to help Kazuaki with his. It made Kazuaki so embarrassed and so grateful he wanted to cry, and every time he wasn’t able to solve a math problem despite Uzune explaining it to him, he actually cried.

That was how they spent their Friday evening, in Kazuaki’s tiny apartment, trying to keep Kazuaki from falling behind in his studies. He still did, and it made him even more miserable. Uzune had forbade him from apologizing long time ago, so he just wept in silence and tried his best to scribble some more equations. Thankfully Uzune was patient and so much better at teaching than Kazuaki’s real math teacher. They’ve been at it for a couple of hours already and Kazuaki’s legs were numb underneath him. He was hunched over the table and blinked the water from his eyes so he could finish the last one. With wobbly writing he marked the answer and then dropped his pen on the table.

“Uzune! I did it, look! I don’t know if it’s correct, but…” Kazuaki’s words trailed off when he saw Uzune asleep on the floor. He had one arm under his head and the other covering it, like he was trying to close off all the noises or shielding his head from something. Kazuaki looked around perplexed, but the room was dim and quiet.

It wasn’t surprise that he was sleepy, Kazuaki concluded, because Uzune was so hard-working and always up early. Maybe to him, 10 pm was late. To Kazuaki, the night hasn’t even started yet. He always stayed up too late playing video games anyway… Though he vaguely remembered Uzune mentioning that he had sometimes trouble falling asleep, too. Kazuaki didn’t know what could be the reason for that.

He whimpered quietly when he straightened his aching legs from their crouched position and crawled around the table to Uzune. He had to lay flat on his stomach to peer at his face that was hidden between his arms. Uzune looked tired. He had dark crescents under his eyes and his brows were furrowed even in his sleep.

Kazuaki didn’t want to wake him up. Uzune deserved to rest, he did so much. He was such a good friend to Kazuaki, always there for him. Kazuaki laid there watching him and thought about all the things that made Uzune so great. He was kind and smart and good with kids and teachers alike. Everyone liked him… He was an A student and talented at mathematics, too. Kazuaki had overheard once a teacher offering Uzune a scholarship, a transfer to a better school where he could make use of his skills. Uzune had refused it. Kazuaki still wondered why.

It wasn’t that Kazuaki wasn’t secretly happy that Uzune had said no. In fact, he didn’t know what he would do if Uzune ever left. Would he be able to live at all? Kazuaki tried to look back at the times when Uzune wasn’t in his life yet, but winced. Only thinking back gave him a spike of fear, a nauseating feeling of panic. He wouldn’t be able to live. He would die. He couldn’t live without him, no, not at all. He would just die the day when Uzune turned his back at him.

Without realizing, Kazuaki had started to cry. He buried his face in his arms trying to make it cease but it just made it worse. His breathing hitched and he gasped and wiped his face with his sleeves. The tears wouldn’t stop. It felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he was drowning. Kazuaki planted his head on the floor and his hands on top of the blonde curls. His shoulders shook uncontrollably, he couldn’t muffle all the sounds. He wanted to disappear, to not exist, he hoped he was never born in the first place. He wanted to die, he wanted to die, he wanted to die right now.

“Hey, hey, what it is this time, Kazu?”

There was a warm hand on his shoulder. Uzune sounded tired and Kazuaki knew that he had woken him up by being a crybaby again. He wanted to die even more because of that but he couldn’t help but to bother him more. Kazuaki scrambled up and threw himself on to him. Uzune dodged his attack by raising his arms so Kazuaki wrapped tightly around his torso instead of shoulders.

“There, there,” Uzune patted his head weakly and inched towards the table with koala-like Kazuaki clinging on to him and getting his shirt wet. He grabbed the box of tissues from it and offered one to Kazuaki.

“Don’t leave meee,” Kazuaki sobbed in between panicky gasps. He refused to release Uzune from his death grip.

“I won’t. I’m not going anywhere, okay? Where’d you get that idea from?” Uzune scolded and sat back down in defeat, Kazuaki on his lap. He heaved a heavy sigh.

“Do you remember what I told you, Kazu? When this happens, you need to breathe. Breathe.”

Kazuaki remembered, at least now, but it was harder to put into effect. He was so sad he felt like he fell into pieces right there and now and could never be put back into one. And yet, that was exactly what Uzune did.

They spent the next minutes just breathing together. Uzune kept his hand on top of Kazuaki’s head when he struggled to take in deep breaths. His whole body was trembling, clear tears still flowing over the bridge of his nose and seeping into Uzune’s clothes. Uzune checked his email with his other hand while he waited for Kazuaki to be done with it. Then he told him to wipe his face and brought him a glass of water.

“You need fresh air.”

They went out into the night. It was already fall, but the heavy warmth of summer still lingered in the air and made the evenings comfortable. They didn’t really need jackets but Uzune made Kazuaki wear one anyway; he was still shivering and weary after crying so much. It was pitch black outside apart from streetlights and a couple of gentle glows behind windows in the neighbouring houses.

Uzune walked them past the houses to the nearby park. It was tiny, only a small space with a playground, some patches of grass and a couple of trees. There were no one there this late.

Kazuaki squeezed Uzune’s hand with one of his hands and held the jacket close with the other. He rarely went out when he was by himself and certainly not at this hour. The long shadows streetlamps casted frightened him, the darkness made his imagination run wild. But with Uzune’s hand in his, he could overcome anything. It wasn’t often that he let him do that, so Kazuaki relished in the feeling of his warmth when he could. If he just concentrated on that and forget about everything else, he was fine. With him, it was okay.

There was a single park bench under a tree. They walked over and sat there. Kazuaki wanted to be close to him but Uzune took his hand away and left a gap between them. Kazuaki’s lower lip quivered but he didn’t want to bother Uzune now. He followed Uzune’s gaze with his eyes, he was looking up to the sky.

Surprisingly, all the clouds were gone, leaving just the perfect inky blue behind. Kazuaki blinked until his eyes were used to the darkness and then he started to distinguish the map of stars above them. It reminded him of those children’s exercise books where you had to connect the dots to make a picture appear. His eyes couldn’t make out any shapes from there. The vastness made his head spin, he felt so small and scared.

“You can still see the Summer Triangle,” Uzune observed and brought Kazuaki back from his thoughts.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“An asterism. Between Cygnus, Aquila and Lyra. It’s visible around midnight at this time of the year.”

“I.. I don’t know about those,” Kazuaki said with a tiny voice.

“The swan and the eagle,” Uzune explained and pointed them out for him, but Kazuaki couldn’t piece together the shapes when he didn’t know how they looked like.

“You know so much, Uzune. How do you do it?” He sighed in admiration. It felt like he couldn’t hold on to any information he needed for a test, let alone anything extra.

Uzune was quiet for a long time. Kazuaki glanced at him but he had that far-off look in his eyes. It wasn’t unusual for him, Kazuaki had seen it a couple of times already. He was dying to know what Uzune was thinking about, but he knew he wouldn’t tell even if he asked. So Kazuaki waited and swung his legs that were dangling over the edge of the bench.

“I used to do this with Nageki,” Uzune said at last. He let out a sigh. “He was always curious of stars, and I learned so I could tell him about them.”

Nageki was a name Kazuaki had heard a couple of times from Uzune. He never wanted to talk about him, so Kazuaki knew not to ask. Uzune talked about him with such fondness in his voice it made Kazuaki’s stomach churn with jealousy. At the same time, it felt as if Nageki was no longer in Uzune’s life. Every time he was mentioned, it was a memory. Kazuaki wondered what happened to him.

That night Uzune stayed over at Kazuaki’s place. It was already late so he just made a bed for himself on Kazuaki’s floor and commanded him to go to sleep, too. Kazuaki lay under the covers listening to Uzune’s breathing and his own frantic heartbeat. He had to hide his face under his pillow when his own thoughts made him too embarrassed. But he couldn’t stop dreaming of Uzune sleeping next to him instead of the floor… Them going on a date to that new café… Uzune holding his hand and not letting go.

Those dreams filled him with a feeling he had never experienced before. It was big and impossible to contain and all of it screamed Uzune’s name. Kazuaki thought about his face when he was looking at the stars. Uzune had looked so vulnerable, so beautiful. He longed to connect with him, to be allowed close, just to be with him. Kazuaki knew he would follow Uzune wherever he would take him.

When he was not alone anymore, everything felt less scary. Kazuaki knew he could trust Uzune. He was ready to trust him, to give him everything. No matter what awaited him in the future, if Uzune was with him, he was ready to face it. Kazuaki was sure they would be together like this, forever and ever.

For once, he drifted into sleep easily, all the bad thoughts gone from his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I broke my own heart when I wrote this... Tell me what do you think!
> 
> (Thanks @thedoomedprophett for betaing!)


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